Just Finished Reading: The Cider House Rules by John Irving (FP: 1985)

For as long as he could remember, orphan Homer Wells wanted to be of use. Born into the orphanage in St Clouds, Maine, he knew of no other life despite finding several families who would take him in, at least briefly. Dr Wilbur Larch, who ran the orphanage, worried that Homer was being institutionalised but he loved him as a son and feared for his progress in the outside world. But needing to feel of use Homer began assisting in the work of Dr Larch, both legal (the live births of unwanted children) and illegal (the abortions that the state would not sanction regardless of the need). Until that fateful arrival of young Candy and her loving boyfriend who had heard of a Doctor who would perform such services that could not be obtained elsewhere. That was when Homer fell in love, broke his promise and stepped out into the wide world setting in train a whole host of consequences he had no idea he was responsible for.

Although a rather chunky 587 pages this really shouldn’t have taken me over 2 weeks to complete compared with an upcoming book to review of 582 pages which took me 5 days to finish (OK, I was off work ill for 3 of those days but the point stands). It’s not that this is a bad book. It is not poorly written, now is it boring, convoluted (OK, maybe a little) or exactly difficult. It was arguably outside of my normal comfort zone but, as one of my regular lurkers has remarked, my comfort zone is rather wide. This book was, in many ways, an impressive one. The characterisation was outstanding. I always admire the way that an author can create a number of characters of both sexes that are completely believable and that, in one way or another, the reader can relate to. The author did that here ‘in spades’ (as they say). The story, whilst rather convoluted (in other words ‘real’), was eminently easy to follow. I certainly didn’t lose the plot at any point. I think my problem was that nothing really seemed to happen – despite the fact that a great deal actually happened. I know that hardly makes any sense but, at least for now, that’s the best way to describe how I felt reading it. It wasn’t exactly a slog as such. I didn’t feel that reading it was a particular effort but I couldn’t seem to read more that 5-6 pages without finding something else that needed doing. In contrast to my upcoming ‘chunky’ book where I read over 100 pages in a day and had to force myself to put it down and go do something else to stop my eyes burning!

So… not exactly gripping. More interesting, funny, clever, well written and a deserved modern classic, but……….. I am making more of an effort to read more, for want of a better word, mainstream novels. Well, this was one of them. There will be more as it’s not exactly put me off pushing my boundaries a little bit (never a bad thing in most cases).